Sony says no quad-core smartphones for 2012

Worried about battery life

By Chris Martin | PC Advisor | 02 March 12

Sony has confirmed that it will not be releasing any quad-core powered devices this year stating that it doesn’t want to compromise on battery life.

The news comes following a quad-core jamboree at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. Hordes of quad-core devices were announced and shown off at the show from firms including Huawei, LG, ZTE, Panasonic and HTC.

"Because right now we don't feel that is there. What we are going to be doing in the second-half of the year is moving to the Cortex A15 architecture, which we feel outperforms the current quad-core architecture."

The firm has announced a range of Android-based Xperia smartphones called the Xperia S, Xperia P and Xperia U which all come with dual-core chips. Sony said it is likely to move to quad-core chips in 2013.

"You'll see in 2013, as we're evaluating the quad-core performance where it makes sense, where you're not suffering in quality and the performance truly is there, and there really is something that demanding applications need. That's when we make the right move to quad-core." said Sneeden.

Although Sony is implying that battery life will be poor on quad-core devices, NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chip which featured at MWC has a fifth power saving core to improve battery life. Sony better hope that it’s made the right decision.